Return to David's theory of evolution and theodicy (Evolution)

by dhw, Saturday, August 12, 2023, 08:27 (259 days ago) @ David Turell

dhw: […] YOUR all-knowing God knew in advance that we WOULD sin, so what would be the point in asking us not to? And how can an all-powerful God be powerless to prevent the evil consequences of his own inventions? You say your God does what he wants to do. So he wanted to create the evil he knew would happen. I wonder which “theodicy articles” take your approach. […]

DAVID: Once again, they all emphasize the 'good'.

In which case, just like you, they are simply dodging the question posed by theodicy, which is how an all-good God could possibly create evil.

DAVID: […] His reasoning is unknown. Your demand for exactitude is unreasonable.

dhw: But you are the one who proposes exactitude: over and over again, you have specified that your God’s one and only purpose was to design us and our food. (Repeated today under “ocean floor”: "My form of God is strictly purposeful with humans as a goal.") When I ask you why he would then have created 99 out of 100 irrelevant life forms, you can find no answer. It is your theory that is unreasonable. Just as your two responses to the theodicy problem are unreasonable: 1) evil is so minor that we shouldn’t even think about it; 2) your all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God can’t control his inventions or, in the case of humans, gave them the freedom to commit evil, knowing in advance exactly what evil they would commit.

DAVID: Total poppycock: evolution is a culling process which must result in a 99% loss. My God and your God both used it, although your purposeless God didn't know the endpoint.

You have ignored your irrational views on theodicy. As for evolution, we know that 99% became extinct. But why “must” your all-powerful, all-knowing God deliberately design 99% that are irrelevant to his purpose? As first-cause creator, why on earth would he create such a binding obligation to use what you yourself call a messy, inefficient system to achieve what you tell us is his one and only purpose? You have no idea. Only God can make sense of such nonsense. And please stop repeating that my various alternative explanations are “purposeless”. Experiments to find a particular formula, or the joy of making new discoveries are purposes.

DAVID: Endless sophistry. God chose to evolve us for His special unknown reasons. We have both made endless guesses as to why.

If God exists, and since we both accept evolution as a fact, then of course he chose to evolve us and every other species that exists and/or existed. That is not the problem and you know it, and you are the one who is guilty of sophistry because you keep leaving it out of your vague generalizations. You cannot find any reasons for the theory I have bolded above, and so you keep dodging it.

dhw: I wonder what your fellow theologians would make of your theories.

DAVID: Their articles mirror my theology.

dhw: So they ridicule his method of designing his one and only purpose as “messy, cumbersome and inefficient”, and they inform us that their all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good God knew perfectly well that he was creating future war, murder, rape, flood, famine, disease etc. etc. but went ahead all the same. I’m surprised that they all embrace such negative views of their God.

DAVID: Not in your distorted mirror. My agreement with ID is a God who designs, is purposeful in His designs and has humans as His endpoint.

I’m not questioning your agreement with them, but what you claim is their agreement with you. Do ID-ers believe that your God’s one and only purpose for creating life was to design us and our food, and therefore he was compelled by some law of his own making to deliberately design 99 out of 100 species that had nothing to do with his one and only purpose?

DAVID: ID and I see the positive, while you do is reflect entirely on the negative, which is a much smaller aspect of reality.

Do they agree with you that the problem of theodicy is solved by ignoring evil, and that your all-good God knew in advance that his creations would wage war, commit murder, rape etc., and would produce floods and famines and terrible diseases, but went ahead all the same? And why do you regard these beliefs of yours as being “positive”?